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Isn't it also the case that the bottles are reused, rather than recycled?
by acjohnson55 8y ago
Isn't it also the case that the bottles are reused, rather than recycled?
- blattimwind 8y agoGlass water and beer bottles are reused, thick-walled PET water bottles are reused, while most plastic (mostly PET) bottles and all cans are, at best, recycled. For other and broken glass items there are glass containers pretty much everywhere, broken up by color (white glass, brown glass, green glass). Plastics delivered by consumers are separated but never recycled.
- fkistner 8y agoAssuming we are still talking about Germany, yes, plastics collected via "Der Grüne Punkt" (engl. the green dot, named after the label on the packing) are in fact commonly reused. According to official figures about 51% of plastics are recycled, 38% is burned [1]. [1]: https://dip21.bundestag.de/dip21/btd/17/129/1712978.pdf https://dip21.bundestag.de/dip21/btd/17/129/1712978.pdf
- maxxxxx 8y agoEven better!
- hocuspocus 8y agoStandard shape glass bottles are, and those have the smallest deposit too: beer, soft drinks, water, I believe that's it? Non-standard glass bottles are recycled. PET and aluminum cans are obviously recycled, not reused, and have a steep 25¢ deposit.
- majewsky 8y agoFor reference, Lidl (a German discount supermarket chain) advertises that ~50% of their bottles' PET comes from recycled bottles.
- cmurf 8y agoIn my state glass is neither reused nor recycled, it's crushed and used as filler for things like environmental drainage projects. A big part of the problem in rural areas is the cost to transport glass makes it worthless to buy and recycle, and there's a high contamination rate, so increasingly it's back to the landfill for glass.